Since the launch of 'Make In India', the country has moved up by four places in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings

ETBrandEquity

January 27, 2016, 06:14 IST

By Dr Mukund Govind Rajan

Launched in 2014, the 'Make In India' campaign is aimed at fuelling the growth of India's manufacturing sector, lowering barriers to doing business, and promoting foreign direct investment (FDI). From satellites to submarines, it is focused on making India a global manufacturing hub, significantly increasing the share of manufacturing in the GDP to 25 per cent by 2022 and creating 100 million jobs.

Since its launch, FDI is up 29%, with India receiving FDI commitments of US$141bn. Additionally, India has moved up by four places in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings, with significant improvement expected next year on the back of several administrative reforms.

The stars are clearly aligning for India. The country recently added its billionth mobile customer, and the manner in which mobile telephony has overtaken traditional fixed line technology illustrates the innovation driving Indian companies to leapfrog generations.

This is also true of many other sectors. For example, in aviation, India is emerging as a major hub for assembly and manufacture of aircraft and components. Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation relocated its fuselage manufacturing facility for the S-92 helicopter — famous as Marine One, which flies the US President — from Japan to India. Sikorsky's joint venture partner, Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL), set up a greenfield facility in Hyderabad in record time; today, this is the single global source for assembly of the S-92 fuselage. On the back of this experience, TASL has rapidly emerged as a leader in aero-structures, partnering global aircraft-makers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Airbus, Pilatus and RUAG Aviation.

India's automobile industry, soon to become the third largest in the world, is poised to become the flagship of the Make in India programme. In electronic systems design and manufacturing (ESDM) too, India is fast becoming one of the world's largest markets for consumer electronic products. It is also taking the lead in emerging sectors like climate friendly technologies. With the government's ambitious target of creating 100 GW of solar power capacity by 2022 — which will make India the largest solar power producer — innovation and manufacturing have received a welcome boost. Indeed, as the third largest startup hub in the world, the drive of Indian start-ups in energy and other sectors reflects a new spirit of entrepreneurship that augurs well for the future.

Underlying 'Make In India' project is the government's determination to create supportive infrastructure, including expanding the highways network, modernizing railways, and reforming power generation, transmission and distribution systems. With global commodity prices, including the cost of petroleum imports, dramatically softening over the past two years, this is the best time to deploy public spending to scale up India's infrastructure. This will induce the private sector to fulfill its role, illustrated, for instance, by Tata Steel's recent dedication of the massive new Kalinganagar steel plant to the state of Odisha.

Complementing developments within India, we also see Brand India being acknowledged overseas. Corporate leaders like Rakesh Kapoor, Satya Nadella, and Indra Nooyi, and management gurus, like Vijay Govindarajan and Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, are championing Indian thought leadership on the global stage. From Bill Gates to David Cameron, the world's who's who consult with titans of Indian industry like Ratan Tata. And one of India's best known exports — yoga — is changing the way people live their lives; the United Nations has even declared June 21st as International Yoga Day.

As the most diversified industrial group in India, with around a hundred manufacturing facilities across the country, Tatas are enthused by the Make In India paradigm. In the last two decades, the Tata group has made key strategic choices, structured around its adoption of two fundamental tools — the Tata Business Excellence Model and the Tata Code of Conduct — which have powered it to first compete effectively in the domestic market, and then converted it from an India-focused entity to a global enterprise with revenues of $108 billion now. Tata Consultancy Services is today amongst the most profitable global IT services companies. Tata Communications owns the world's largest submarine cable optical fibre network, processing one in four global internet searches. Tata Global Beverages is the world's second largest tea company. And Tata Motors' astonishing turnaround of Jaguar Land Rover makes it one of the most exciting automobile companies in the world.

The Tata journey demonstrates that as Indian industry grows in scale, stature and confidence, it will pursue global competitiveness and then claim global leadership. Beyond the market opportunity it represents, the Tata group sees in the Make In India platform the seeds of a new India, a selfconfident India that can control its destiny and shape the future in a way that is most responsive to the needs of its people. The learnings are in place — Brand India's time has come!

(The author is member - group executive council, brand custodian and chief ethics officer, Tata Sons)